CityBeat | April 3, 2024

North Fairmount Jane Doe Identified, Killer Still

Unknown Investigators are asking the public to help identify where Makaila Luckey was during her nal days in November 2023, and who she might have been with.

BY MADELINE FENING

Investigators have determined the identity of the woman found dismembered in North Fairmount in November 2023, but authorities are again calling for the public’s help as her killer remains a mystery.

North Fairmount Jane Doe has been identi ed as Makaila Luckey, 25, according to the Hamilton County Coroner’s o ce.

In a March 22 news conference, Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Kode Sammarco said Luckey was identi ed after her sister saw a Cincinnati Police Department Facebook post about the case in February and came forward. Investigators were able to run Luckey’s name in the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation database where her DNA was on le for an unrelated crime of which she was the victim. Investigators did not provide speci cs on how she ended up in this database.

What we know about

Makaila Luckey

e coroner’s o ce said Luckey was local to the area, but estranged from her family, who said she had struggled with mental health issues and possible substance abuse disorders. Luckey was 25 years old, born on April 28, 1998, and con rmed to have had a child at one point in time. Investigators said she sometimes went by Kayla or her nickname, “Bubbles.”

Luckey’s family told investigators that she frequented the West End

neighborhood, and that she was last seen alive in Lincoln Heights getting on a Metro bus to head downtown.

Sammarco declined to answer questions about the cause of Luckey’s death, something the coroner’s o ce has said they know but are keeping close to the chest as the investigation continues. Investigators do believe it was likely the killer knew Luckey, saying her murder and dismemberment was “meticulous.”

Police again asking for help

e Cincinnati Police Department is still investigating to nd Luckey’s killer, asking the public to help identify where she was during her nal days in November 2023, and who she might have been with.

“We are here today looking for any information anybody might have about her, about her whereabouts, the last few weeks of October, the rst week of November. Anybody she might have been with, any locations where anybody might have seen her,” said Sammarco.

“ is is still an ongoing investigation. is is still a homicide.”

Background on the case

Luckey’s dismembered body was found the morning of Nov. 5 in the woods o Baltimore Avenue near Beekman Street.

e Cincinnati Police Department responded to the scene after a passerby called to report the remains. e coroner listed her death as a homicide.

e ensuing weeks after Luckey (then identi ed simply as Jane Doe) was rst discovered were quiet. Investigators

Overdose Deaths are Down in Ohio, but Xylazine Poses New Health Challenges

BY MADELINE FENING

The Hamilton County Addiction Response Coalition (HCARC) published its annual report last week, and while it shows a promising decline in overdose deaths, harm reduction specialists tell CityBeat that xylazine has created new problems for those suffering from substance abuse disorders.

searched for trace evidence, looking for hair, blood, anything that appeared related to the case. Criminalists ran DNA and investigators elded hotline tips, but the most signi cant development came two months after she was rst discovered.

During a Jan. 3 sweep of the area, Cincinnati’s FBI Evidence Response Team was assisting with the search for more body parts when agents discovered a human head two blocks away from the location where the torso was found, further perplexing community members. e coroner con rmed the body parts matched the following week. ough more decomposed than her torso, Luckey’s head gave investigators more information to piece together her identity.

e coroner’s o ce has determined Luckey was killed not long before her body was discovered the morning of Nov. 5. ey estimate her time of death was likely on or around Nov. 3.

Captain Steve Saunders leads the Criminal Investigation Section at the Cincinnati Police Department. He told CityBeat – in his 33 years with the department – this is a rst-of-its-kind case.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said in a previous interview with CityBeat. “I’ve seen lots of gruesome crime scenes and horrible things that have happened to people, which is bad enough as it is, but to see this level of heinous behavior is disturbing.”

e investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information about the case can make an anonymous tip by calling Crime Stoppers at 513-352-3040.

e State of the Addiction Crisis report showed there were 393 overdose deaths in Hamilton County in 2023, down 9% from 2022. It’s been almost 10 years since overdose deaths were this low; the county logged 298 fatal overdoses in 2014. Overdoses in 2023 were down 31% compared to the crisis’ peak in 2017 when a record 570 people died of an overdose in Hamilton County.

e downward trend for overdose deaths is similar across the state. Harm Reduction Ohio, a nonpro t that tracks and aggregates Ohio drug overdose data, reported around 4,915 Ohioans died of an overdose in 2022. By 2023, that number (which is currently considered an estimate as year-end data continues to be reported) dropped by about 6% to 4,620. But overdoses were lower across the state as recently as 2019 when 4,028 people died of an overdose.

HCARC executive chairwoman and Hamilton County commissioner Denise Driehaus said the year-over-year decrease in overdose deaths is a result of collaboration.

“Our approach is anchored in four fundamental pillars: prevention, treatment, interdiction, and harm reduction,” Driehaus says in the report. “Each of these pillars is forti ed by the expertise of individuals serving on the subcommittees of the HCARC. Furthermore, we have cultivated strong partnerships with local governments, schools, businesses, hospitals, the faith community, and the recovery community, bolstering our e orts and amplifying our impact.”

How xylazine is changing the game

Noam Barnard is an organizer for the Coalition for Community Safety (CCS). CityBeat interviewed Barnard in April 2022 about harm reduction training for Cincinnati bartenders. At the time, fentanyl creeping into party drugs like cocaine and pressed pills was a growing problem in Cincinnati, and it still

The North Fairmount Jane Doe has been identi ed as Makaila Luckey, 27, according to the Hamilton County Coroner's office.

PHOTO: THE OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE

is, but Barnard said xylazine has added an entirely new layer to combating the impacts of drugs.

“I don’t think we’re seeing it so much with party drugs being cut with xylazine, but it’s still a risk,” Barnard said. “And hopefully, not just CCS, but other organizations around town and around the country are kind of getting the message across like, ‘Hey, if you’re trying to go out and party on a Saturday night, get some

test strips.’ Where it gets tricky is when we go back out onto the street.”

Xylazine (also known as “tranq”) is a non-opioid veterinary tranquilizer meant for sedating animals. It’s a central nervous system depressant that can cause drowsiness, amnesia and slowed breathing, heart rate and blood pressure. Exact data on the level of xylazine found in Ohio’s illicit drug supply is not yet available, but coroners across the country are

starting to see more people killed by the drug, prompting the Biden administration to designate fentanyl adulterated or associated with xylazine as an emerging threat to the United States in April 2023.

Unlike fentanyl, which Barnard said has replaced the demand for heroine, xylazine is not being sought out by those who use it most, but it’s no mystery it’s what they’re getting either.

“[ e people] I deal with on a regular basis that I see on the streets, sex workers, folks like that, they know it’s not a risk –it’s a high probability that the xylazine is gonna be in there.”

A xylazine overdose cannot be reversed with the use of Narcan because the drug is not an opioid, which means rescue breathing is the only option for someone to avoid serious injury or death.

“What that boils down to, unfortunately, is it makes the whole scenario a little bit more uncomfortable, because now you have to do rescue breathing,” Barnard said. “Now it’s not just squirting a thing in somebody’s nose, now you’re getting real, real personal.”

e need for wound care

But what makes xylazine so di erent from fentanyl is its prolonged impacts on those using the drug daily. Scaly wounds can begin to pop up on all parts of the body, known as eschar, with severe enough cases resulting in limb amputation.

“Best way I could describe it is looking like a cigarette burn or a cigar burn,” Barnard said. “It starts out as a small, little

sore and turns into a big mess. Without being able to have access to running water and soap and stu like that, they fester, get worse and worse.”

Barnard and other volunteers with CCS have added rst aid duties like wound dressing to their operation in response to the xylazine outbreak.

“Not only are our clients susceptible to a dangerous overdose that can’t just simply be reversed by Narcan, but also we’re having to o er rst aid, gauze pads, medical tape, all kinds of stu like that,” he said. “It makes our budget go up.”

In response to the increasing severity of xylazine wounds, Hamilton County Public Health has partnered with Neighborhood Health to provide mobile and in-person wound care services at the Corryville SAFE Services site in the back parking lot of 250 William Howard Taft Road.

Other mobile units like CCS and PATH Behavioral Healthcare are able to reach people in surrounding neighborhoods. Barnard said educating people about wound care is important, but meeting them where they are is critical to their health.

“ at’s something that we’ve been trying to educate people in the streets about,” he said. “It’s hard to tell somebody that may be just waking up at the beginning of the day and they’re feeling sick from their withdrawal symptoms, to say, ‘Hey, make sure you test your fentanyl, and also, if it has xylazine, don’t use it. Give it back to your dealer.’ It just doesn’t go that way.”

Hamilton County Auditor Brigid Kelly Dies at 40; ‘A True Public Servant’

BY MADELINE FENING

Former Hamilton County Auditor Brigid Kelly has died after a two-year battle with cancer, her family announced on March 26. She was 40 years old.

“We sadly report that our dear one, Brigid Kelly, passed on Tuesday evening at her home,” Kelly’s family said in an announcement late Tuesday. “She was surrounded by love and peace after waging a two-year battle with cancer. Brigid’s failing health necessitated her recent resignation as Hamilton County Auditor. She was a treasured wife, daughter and sister, a valued friend and a true public servant.”

Funeral services are pending. Hamilton County commissioners honored Kelly’s life and legacy by ordering the

During a March 21 meeting, commissioners announced that Brigid Kelly, 40, had entered hospice care after a two-year battle with cancer.

PHOTO: VIA BRIGID KELLY'S FACEBOOK

The presence of xylazine in drugs tested in labs increased in every region of the United States from 2020-2021, according to the CDC.

PHOTO: THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

flags of county-owned buildings be flown at half-staff.

Kelly, who also served in the state legislature from 2016 to 2023, submitted her immediate resignation to commissioners on March 20. During a March 21 meeting, commissioners announced that Kelly had entered hospice care after a two-year battle with cancer. Commissioner Denise Driehaus made the tearful announcement, praising Kelly for carrying out her role while fighting her diagnosis.

“She has fought this disease with her typical rigor while continuing to serve as the county auditor,” Driehaus said. “I have known Brigid for decades. Her entire adult life has been about fighting for what she believes in: dignity for others, fairness and justice.”

“It’s almost unbelievable,” added Commission President Alicia Reece, shaking her head. “The biggest thing that I’m torn to pieces about, she’s got little nieces that look up to her. She loves her nieces.”

Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairwoman Gwen McFarlin released a statement after Kelly’s resignation, saying she has been one of the party’s hardest workers.

“Auditor Kelly is an outstanding Auditor and gave tremendous service to the residents of Hamilton County,” McFarlin said. “Kelly has been one of our most hard-working campaigners, canvassing tirelessly for our endorsed Democrats. We have all thoroughly enjoyed working with her and her support for the slate has been significant and meaningful. Our prayers are with Brigid and her family. We hope she knows how much we love her and how much all residents in the county have for her hard work and dedication to public service.”

Chief Deputy Auditor Amy Humphrey will fill the interim role of auditor until the the Hamilton County Democratic Party appoints an auditor to serve through the end of 2024. The chosen replacement would need to run for the seat come November.

Kelly has recommended Rep. Jessica Miranda of Ohio House District 28 to fill her seat. In a letter written to supporters, Kelly said Miranda is dedicated to building a stronger community.

“Rep. Miranda has served in the Statehouse since 2018 and was elected by her peers to serve as the Ohio House Democratic Whip. Rep. Miranda is a small business owner providing insurance and tax services to middle- and workingclass families. She is an award-winning Licensed Property & Casualty Insurance Broker and holds numerous IRS certifications. Rep. Miranda previously served on the Winton Woods School Board, including as its President. Rep. Miranda and her husband, Jose, are the parents of three daughters, homeowners, and committed entrepreneurs in the City of Forest Park, dedicated to building a stronger and more prosperous community,” Kelly wrote.

Darbi Boddy Removed from Lakota School Board, Compares Herself to Trump

BY MADELINE FENING

Darbi Boddy, the controversial anti-”woke” crusader who’s drawn national attention during her time on the Lakota School Board, has officially been booted from her seat.

Lakota parents and community members have been campaigning to remove Boddy from her seat since July 2022, mostly on the basis of her anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-diversity and inclusion stances. Board members have censured Boddy before, asking her to step down for accidentally posting a link to a porn website on her official Facebook page while speaking out against sex education and critical race theory.

But it wasn’t until Boddy created a legal barrier between herself and the board that her expulsion was possible.

Divisions on the board

Repeated spats with fellow board members created a sharp divide on the Lakota School Board, even resulting in a former superintendent to leave the district. But tensions grew as Boddy began verbally attacking and harassing fellow board member Isaac Adi between April and November of last year.

In April 2023, Adi and Boddy attended a conservative leadership conference in Florida, during which Boddy confronted Adi in front of hundreds of attendees by reading prepared statements where she claims Adi is not conservative enough, according to court documents. Boddy also posted a video to Facebook on June 22 where she is recording Adi as she follows him out of a board meeting, confronting him for allegedly telling Boddy her “brain is empty.” Adi can be seen pushing Boddy’s phone away, prompting Boddy to tell Adi, “You just assaulted me.” Boddy filed an assault report with Butler County Sheriff’s Office, who ultimately determined the incident was not an assault, closing the investigation.

Adi filed for a civil protection stalking order against Boddy in September 2023, testifying that he was hospitalized for three days due to the stress of Boddy’s ongoing harassment. The

order, which took effect on Sept. 20, barred Boddy from going to Adi’s home and place of employment, including Lakota School Board meetings, for two years.

After an appeal was filed by Boddy’s lawyer, a judge granted Boddy a temporary exception to attend board meetings with Adi, with the condition that she could not communicate with him “unless necessary.” She was also required to wait until five minutes after Adi leaves before exiting meetings. But once the appeals court rejected her appeal, the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office determined that temporary exception was no longer valid.

As a result, Boddy was met with detectives upon trying to enter a Nov. 17 committee meeting and was issued a citation by a Butler County prosecutor, a misdemeanor offense that can result in a $1,000 fine and jail time. It was the last time Boddy attended a meeting in person.

Voting Boddy out

While board rules made it difficult to expel Boddy based on her behavior, state law allowed the board to pass a resolution declaring her seat open after she failed to come to board meetings for more than 90 days straight.

Boddy was not present for the Wednesday meeting to vote on the resolution. Adi abstained from the

vote. The resolution passed 3-0.

“Tonight, the Lakota Board of Education announces a vacancy in the seat held by Darbi Boddy. The vacancy stems from Mrs. Boddy’s inability to attend Board meetings due to her actions that resulted in a Civil Stalking Protective Order (CSPO) issued against her,” board president Julie Shaffer said following the vote.

Boddy told CityBeat that the resolution was “corrupt.”

“Not a day goes by when I’m not thanked by someone who lets me know that my presence has had a positive effect on the future of Lakota,” Boddy told CityBeat. “This has always been a First Amendment issue. This corrupt process has quashed not just my voice but the voice of those who voted for me, and for that reason, I do not think it will wear well.”

Boddy, an outspoken defender of the Moms for Liberty organization, compared her ouster from the board to the legal challenges facing former President Donald Trump.

“It’s pathetic and sad, and this is the same type of thing they are trying to do to Trump,” Boddy told CityBeat. “I have honestly not met a single person who believes that Isaac needs to be protected from me, even those who like the outcome, know that it was a corrupt process that removed me.”

The board will begin the process of filling Boddy’s seat in April.

Former Lakota School Board member Darbi Boddy PHOTO: BODDY FOR LAKOTA ON FACEBOOK

BREAKING GROUND on the CLIMATE CRISIS

Northern Kentucky business NATIVE YARDENING reveals how our yards directly impact the climate crisis ---

and

how we can use them to fight it

BY SAMI REED

With spring officially in bloom and temperatures already reaching the 70s in Cincinnati, you may be itching to trim up your lawn to get that perfectly manicured look. However, you may want to rechannel that landscaping energy in a new way for the sake of the planet.

According to Tory Erpenbeck, sustainable design expert and face behind Northern Kentucky’s Native Yardening, our yards actually play a powerful

Tory

PHOTO: AIDAN MAHONEY

role in climate change, with traditional North American lawn upkeep posing a serious threat to Earth’s future.

While yards have traditionally stood

as a status symbol for many people across the globe, Native Yardening seeks to change the status quo for private green spaces to mitigate their harmful impact on the environment.

“Before we industrialized everything, there wasn’t just grass that’s an inch high because it’s code,” Erpenbeck tells CityBeat. “There are a lot of living things that aren’t humans needing spaces that are not just an inch of grass. When we take it away, they die. And that’s why we’re here — currently in one of the largest mass extinction events that’s ever happened on the planet. And

lawns have contributed to that.”

There have been five mass extinction events in Earth’s existence, defined by scientists as losing 75% of the world’s species in a short period of geological time — less than 2.8 million years, according to the Natural History Museum.

With nearly half of the planet’s animal species in decline, the world’s leading environmental watchdogs generally agree we are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event, according to a study published in Cambridge Philosophical Society’s Biological Review. But, unlike

all of the other mass extinctions, the cause of this one is entirely based on the actions of one species: humans.

“What’s happening right now is largely human-made,” says Erpenbeck. “While there is some natural cycle to it, we are really exacerbating it and accelerating it to a point where it’s going to wipe out everything.”

So what is the correlation between our yards and climate change? And what do we have to do with it? Can we stop it? Native Yardening first digs into why he feels it’s not an issue wellknown to the larger public.

The laws around lawns

In Cincinnati and cities all across the nation, the laws governing our yards have effectively blinded homeowners to the harm their lawns are causing, according to the Native Yardening founder.

“A freshly cut lawn...it’s policy; it’s law,” Erpenbeck says. “So people don’t think about it. The climate crisis, versus being marketed as a problem that affects every single person on the entire planet, it’s been an us versus them political play, which is not an effective way to get people to care.”

In Cincinnati in particular, one law prohibits weeds or turf grasses from growing higher than ten inches in height. Failure to comply results in a fine, with each day of “violation” regarded as its own new offense.

And the limitations for those who belong to an HOA, or homeowners association, get even more strict. HOA guidelines for yards range from property being covered by at least 80% grass to nothing resembling a garden visible from the street. They often dictate what types of plants are acceptable, with anything that attracts wildlife often off-limits.

While it varies from one association to another, even within the same zip code, HOAs in general strive for a highly uniform look and traditional curb appeal that bans anything that could veer on the side of “unappealing.”

In a study on the early history of American landscape design by the National Gallery of Art, these preferences date back to 18th-century travel accounts and periodicals, with comments on the “appearance of a well-kept yard as a sign of its owner’s prosperity and responsible management,” cites the NGA.

With the amount of land lawns occupy in the United States equal to the size of Minnesota (about 128,000 sq km), their counterintuitive effect on biodiversity is affecting the globe at large.

How Native Yardening is taking action

With a fresh master’s degree in

sustainable design in hand, experience growing native plants, a marketing background and a genuine passion for sustainability — thus the degree — Erpenbeck started Native Yardening.

“How can I implement this knowledge to make a change in the world — to educate people about all of the problems with lawns?” Erpenbeck asks. “There are so many problems with them, and people just don’t know.”

Starting off as a project on the environmental impact of lawns, an Instagram account Erpenbeck created to share his findings proved to be a success, which led him to make Native Yardening a full-fledged business.

A regenerative landscape consulting business, Native Yardening uses education and actionable steps to help others convert their yards into ecological gardens that heal the planet, rather than harm it. Though based in Northern Kentucky, Native Yardening specializes in land all across North America and is heavily web-based, striving to make his business and regenerative gardening in general accessible for all.

Among the heaps of freebies Native Yardening offers via its website, newsletters and Instagram account, you can book an in-person or virtual consultation, purchase downloadable content like guides and workbooks, or take the all-encompassing “Gardening for the Future” course. This online course is self-paced, allowing participants to go back to reference the information at any time — something Erpenbeck feels is the key to success in a process that can feel overwhelming at times.

Erpenbeck is guided by what he calls regenerative gardening, a term he took from regenerative agriculture.

“Basically, regenerative is leaving it better than you found it,” says Erpenbeck. “It’s working with nature versus against nature. And most people, when they’re landscaping, they’re working against nature.”

For the reason a majority of people use their yards counterintuitively (and why cities create laws that reinforce these bad practices), Erpenbeck points to the education system.

“It’s concerning how few people know anything about this, and that I had to go to graduate school to learn it. Very basic, how-nature-works 101. And there are so many things like that, where we’ve just been lied to by a very colonized, Eurocentric education system.”

Noting this as a systemic issue rather than an individual issue, Erpenbeck says it’s clear that for change to occur, we must take matters into our own hands.

“Obviously the climate crisis is not the fault of the individual, to make that clear. It’s the government and a very

small handful of corporations that are ultimately at fault. But they’re also showing us that they don’t care, and they’re not going to fix it, and they’re going to keep making it worse. So we can’t rely on them to make the change,” says Erpenbeck.

How soil impacts the planet

According to the Native Yardening founder, the foundation to understanding how yards impact climate change is the key ingredient to healthy plants, and a topic he is happy to dig into: soil.

“Soil is my favorite thing to talk about. I’m a big fan of soil, because it is really, really, really misunderstood,” says Erpenbeck.

Even scientists have only very recently figured out how soil works, Erpenbeck says. Though it’s always been considered a chemical process, it’s revealed to be a very biological process, as well. But what is it about this biological process that’s impacting our climate?

It turns out there are three major ways soil contributes to the climate crisis — all caused by human error.

Carbon sequestration

Erpenbeck says one of the biggest contributing factors of how we got here is soil acting as a carbon sink, which is a natural or artificial reservoir that absorbs and stores the atmosphere’s carbon.

When plants breathe in carbon dioxide (just like humans breathe in oxygen), they release that carbon dioxide, turn it into carbon and add it to the soil. Carbon is a lot safer in the soil than in the atmosphere, where it’s a greenhouse gas and contributes to global warming. Erpenbeck says the carbon ends up in the atmosphere when soil is disturbed through common lawn and farming practices, which have been normalized for centuries.

“When we disturb the soil through tilling or excessively digging or allowing it to erode, then the soil releases the carbon it’s been storing back into CO2 into the atmosphere where it contributes to the greenhouse effect,” he says.

The greenhouse effect is a natural process that occurs when gasses in Earth’s atmosphere trap the sun’s heat, according to NASA. While the natural greenhouse effect helps to make our planet a comfortable place to live, NASA has observed increases in the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in Earth’s atmosphere caused by humans burning fossil fuels, which puts more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. Too much of these gasses causes our atmosphere to trap more and more heat, warming the Earth even more.

Ocean acidification

The next way soil contributes to climate change is through ocean acidification, which is a reduction in the pH of the ocean over an extended period of time, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Ocean acidification is primarily caused by increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but Erpenbeck points to sediment runoff from soil erosion into oceans that indirectly impacts the oceans’ pH levels.

“So much soil has eroded off of the land into the ocean that it’s changing the pH of the water, and that is one of a couple factors that are killing the coral reefs, which produce about half of the oxygen on the planet,” Erpenbeck says. “We can’t allow all of our soil to go into the ocean when it’s supposed to be on the land.”

Protecting coral reefs may be vital to our future, with a study by Princeton University proving the planet’s oxygen levels are at a steady decline.

Water retention

The third way soil is impacting climate change is through water retention or, rather, a lack thereof.

“Soil is not supposed to puddle,” says Erpenbeck. “It’s supposed to be able to absorb crazy amounts of water — like, so much water. And it just stays there and is available to the plants as they need it. So even in a place where there’s drought, there’s still a reserve of water and the plants can still continue to live.”

Erpenbeck says the reason soil isn’t retaining water is due to a lack of organic matter, or matter that has come from a recently living organism.

“All of the nutrients that plant [or animal] absorbed cycles back into the soil as it decomposes,” he says. “Because the soil doesn’t have the organic matter it needs to retain the water, it’s sort of like the carbon dioxide thing where then the water evaporates and goes into the atmosphere.”

The issue with more and more water vapor in the atmosphere, according to Erpenbeck, is how it impacts our weather.

“It leads to an increase in the frequency and severity of storms and hurricanes and all the weather events we’re seeing and will continue to see more,” Erpenbeck says.

The truth about common lawn practices and standards

Beyond soil, there are a number of common practices and standards surrounding lawns actually counterintuitive to a healthy ecosystem.

Leaf litter

If you left your leaves alone during the fall and winter, you’re already ahead of the curve for this widely performed practice.

“Leaf litter is a big one,” Erpenbeck says. “Along with it being important for the soil, it is very important for wildlife, because a lot of insects over winter make their nests in leaf litter.”

Small mammals like chipmunks will line their winter den with leaf litter to insulate it to keep themselves warm, according to Erpenbeck. He says amphibians and reptiles will also furrow into leaves to keep themselves moist. Birds also eat insects like caterpillars that are born inside the leaf litter. He says insects are widely impacted by less leaves on the ground.

“The reason we don’t see lightning bugs anymore is because they nest in leaf litter. I was able in just two years to have a booming lightning bug population in my yard just from leaving the leaves,” he says.

More than having a soft spot for animals and beloved bugs, providing a habitat for wildlife plays directly into the food chain.

“They are the basic foundations of everything else to live, including our food, because they pollinate our food crops, or something eats it that eats that, which goes into the animals we eat,” he says.

Plus, Erpenbeck says when leaves and wildlife decompose, their organic matter contributes to a healthy soil microbiome.

“The microbiome of the soil is what makes the soil actually work and what makes healthy, good soil that will grow healthy, thriving plants that don’t get attacked by pests and things,” he says. “The microbes need that organic matter as their food and shelter, basically. And they also break it down to turn it into soil.”

One of the easiest changes lawn owners can make for the betterment of the ecosystem, according to Erpenbeck, is simply letting falling leaves lie.

“Leaving them alone makes all the difference,” he says.

And if your city or HOA mandates leaf cleanup for the sake of tidiness, consider relocating your leaves to your backyard. At the very least, consider eco-friendly alternatives to plastic when bagging your leaves and avoid sending them to the landfill where they won’t decompose properly.

Turf grasses and invasive plants

There are no turf grasses native to North America, says Erpenbeck, which are the types of grass used for lawns, classified as areas of short, mown grass in a yard, garden or park. As it turns out, Kentucky Bluegrass isn’t even from Kentucky, but brought over from Europe and is on the state’s official invasive plants list.

“I’ve lived in Kentucky my whole life, and was taught in school that Daniel Boone came to Kentucky and saw the

bluegrass with the little blue flowers, and he named it that — and that’s just not true,” says Erpenbeck.

Traced back to the colonization of America, turf grasses were brought over by European settlers to feed their livestock, but eventually were adopted by the American middle class to signify wealth just as the upper class in England did, Erpenbeck tells CityBeat. By the mid-1800s when America’s first suburbs appeared, these types of lawns became synonymous with the “American Dream,” not only serving as a popular concept but established as the new standard with policies to protect it.

Depending on non-native turf negatively impacts the environment in more ways than one; not only are the standard grasses in our yards not evolved to the specific conditions of our geographic location, but they are also likely to cause ecological harm and outcompete any native plants trying to grow, otherwise known as invasive species.

“The go-to rule of planting native in your yard, while obviously 100% would be ideal, is to have 70% native, 30% non-native,” Erpenbeck says. “But the stuff that isn’t native, it’s important to make sure it’s not invasive.”

Garden center chains, like Lowes and Home Depot, are known for selling a lot of invasive plants, says Erpenbeck. He suggests shoppers come prepared to do some light Googling while they shop.

“Search the name of the plant and native range or invasive and it’ll come up where it’s native to,” he says. “If it does come up that it’s native to Asia or Europe for example, then search invasive and see whether or not it’s invasive.”

Synthetic chemicals

On the topic of garden centers, the next common lawn practice of concern to Erpenbeck is the use of synthetic chemicals — something readily available in stores and widely accepted as the ideal choice for treating your yard.

“I personally think that to use pesticides or herbicides, you should need to take lots of classes and you should need to get a license,” he says. “You should not be able to go to garden centers and buy it — where they have shelves of Roundup. And it’s not even just bad for the lawn and wildlife; it’s bad for people. If you have to put a sign in your yard that says ‘not safe for kids and dogs,’ then you shouldn’t be using it.”

In a 2022 study conducted by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), experts found that 80% of people that they tested had glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, in their urine, including

children. The makers of Roundup have faced thousands of lawsuits in recent years from complainants who developed cancers, most commonly non-Hodgkin lymphoma, from using Roundup. Bayer, which purchased Roundup from the now-defunct Monsanto Company, has had to pay out more than $10 billion in damages, and more lawsuits are ongoing.

“These were not farm workers, these were just random citizens…because it’s in our drinking water,” Erpenbeck says. “When you spray your yard with anything — pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer — when it rains, everything that is sitting there runs off into the sewers and goes into our drinking water.

So you’re not just hurting yourself; you’re hurting your neighbors, your community.”

In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) reclassified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The WHO evaluation noted that glyphosate has the highest production volume of all herbicides, especially in agriculture.

“Plus, a lot of pesticides are systemic, which means they affect the entire plant including the pollen,” Erpenbeck says. “So you’re not just killing the aphids, you’re also killing the bees and the butterflies.”

If you’re using pesticides in the first place because your plant is being killed by bugs, Erpenbeck says the bugs aren’t the problem — the problem is that the plant isn’t healthy to begin with.

“Plants have immune systems just like animals, and if it was that easy — if bugs could just kill plants — there would not be plants anymore,” he says.

Before jumping to any conclusions, the Native Yardening founder recommends taking a closer look to reveal your plant’s true diagnosis.

“Figure out what the bug is, because there are invasive insects like Japanese beetles, but if you’re seeing bugs like caterpillars attacking your plant, you really need to work on your soil. And spraying things is not going to help your soil; it’s going to kill the microbiome.”

How we can use our yards for good

Luckily, all of these common mistakes can easily be fixed, according to Erpenbeck.

“If you are someone who has a yard that you’re able to do what you want with, I think it’s the most impactful thing an individual person can do,” he says.

Here are Native Yardening’s recommendations.

Convert your lawn into an ecological garden

While it may be easier in the fall and

winter when everything is dormant, you can start killing your lawn any time of year. Erpenbeck says now is the time to get stuff in the ground — to start finding plants that are native or to get seeds.

If you decide to grow from seed, while the result is rewarding, you’ll need to keep in mind that for most plants in the Cincinnati area, the seeds need a cold stratification period, AKA tricking your seeds into thinking it’s winter.

“Don’t just buy seeds and put them in your yard and expect them to germinate; you can put them in your fridge for however long — it depends on the seeds and how long they need to be cold for — and they’ll germinate after that,” says Erpenbeck.

If you’re looking for seeds, you may have trouble finding those of native plants at garden center chains. Personally, Erpenbeck grows everything from seed, sourced from reputable nurseries that do not use pesticides. You can buy seeds directly from Native Yardening’s website, or he suggests visiting your local farmers market, like Findlay Market or the Bellevue Beach Park Farmers Market.

It’s okay to start small

For those who feel like converting your lawn is an all-or-nothing act, Erpenbeck stresses that it’s okay to start small. Or if you have a small yard or only a balcony to work worth, it still matters.

“If you have a big yard and you only have the time, energy or money to convert a 3’x3’ space, that is infinitely better than not. Because if everyone did that it would make a huge difference,” Erpenbeck says.

For those with invasive plants, he recommends pulling them up or taking a saw to bigger, unwieldy overgrowth like honeysuckle. For plants at ground level, you can usually smother them with cardboard or a tarp.

To decide where and when to get started exactly, Erpenbeck suggests prioritizing what will go to seed soonest. Going to seed simply means after a plant has flowered, since flowers make seeds, and you want to avoid your invasives from spreading seeds into your yard and continuing to take over. If it’s something that fruits, the seeds will be in there, he says.

A helpful component to this is identifying what plants you’re working with. As this can be difficult for novices and seasoned gardeners alike, a variety of apps like Pl@ntNet and iNaturalist are available that identify the plants for you through photos to smooth and speed up this process.

Once you’ve identified your plant, you’ll find out whether it’s annual, biennial or perennial. Where annual plants last for only one growing season,

biennials last for two, and perennials last anywhere from three to hundreds of years.

“Some plants will start flowering earlier than others. The annuals will probably be the easiest to get if you can keep them from going to seed, cause they’re coming back from the seed and not from the actual plant.

But, to keep it simple, you can use this rule of thumb: “Any invasive plant that you see with flowers — get it before it’s done flowering,” Erpenbeck says.

Use white vinegar

When you need some extra help killing off the invasives in your yard, an incredible alternative you may already have laying around is white vinegar.

“White vinegar is a cure-all for a lot of things,” says Erpenbeck. “It’s a much safer alternative. You definitely want to try to target it because it will kill whatever’s there, but it doesn’t linger the way synthetic chemicals do, and it doesn’t hurt the soil, and it doesn’t harm us.”

Collect rainwater

Another easy way to take care of your yard is by collecting rainwater.

“I personally just put buckets underneath my gutters, but you can buy a rain barrel that’s 50+ gallons, and we get enough rain here where it’s very much worth doing. Then you can use that water to irrigate and it’s much better for your plants than our tap water,” Erpenbeck says.

Since the tap water we have here is hard water, Erpenbeck says it locks up roots and soil. He also notes that tap water is either treated with chlorine or chloramine with the purpose of killing microbes — something you want to avoid when you’re trying to farm the microbes in your soil.

“By collecting rainwater you’re saving water, which is always good, and your water bill will be less if you’re not irrigating with a sprinkler.”

With water laws handled at the state level, it is legal in both Ohio and Kentucky to collect rainwater, though this is not the case for all states.

Inherent benefits of converting your lawn

If not for the plants and the climate, planting native comes with numerous benefits that will save you time and money.

“Native plants, in general, do not need very much from you, because they evolved in our climate. They need the things that are here: the temperature, the amount of rain, et cetera. Once they’re established, you don’t really need to water them unless we get a bad drought,” Erpenbeck says.

Of course, if you get rid of your lawn, this means you won’t have to mow.

“People complain about it,” says Erpenbeck. “And mowing a lot of the time is gas-powered which isn’t good. You’re also chopping up any bugs or amphibians or reptiles — all sorts of little living things — with your lawnmower.”

Plus, planting native has positive health implications.

“If you’re working on your soil, you’re surrounding yourself with the microbiology that is very important to humans as well,” says Erpenbeck. “Your gut microbiome is responsible for your immune system and your mental health and so many things — and all of that is microbiology. You can take a probiotic or you can go touch dirt.”

If you plan on growing food, the benefits continue.

“You can grow vegetables that are so much better for you than anything you can buy at the store. And then you remove the cost, because you can buy tomato seeds for a couple dollars and have more tomatoes than you could ever need for that whole growing season.”

“And you get to see butterflies — and who doesn’t like that?”

Why acting now is important According to Erpenbeck, now is the time to act.

“We’re at a very pivotal point with the health of our planet,” he says. “I think people see climate change as something that’s gonna happen in the future, but it’s happening now and it’s going to get worse,”

But while this is a human-made problem, on the flip side of the same coin, it means we can just as easily make a positive change.

“It’s not over by any means, but we have to start caring and doing what we can. I think turning your yard into a place that is conserving ecology is the most impactful thing — it’s more impactful than not using straws or recycling; it makes a much more direct impact,” says Erpenbeck.

“The Earth is so resilient and there are solutions for all of it. So it’s not hopeless — I don’t ever want anyone to feel hopeless even though sometimes it’s hard not to — but there are solutions.”

It turns out that our yards are a powerful tool for fighting the climate crisis — we’ve just been using them wrong.

“We do have power to make a change,” Erpenbeck says. “And your yard can sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Your yard can help lightning bugs that are becoming threatened species or monarchs that are endangered — a little impact from a lot of people adds up.”

To learn more about Native Yardening, visit nativeyardening.com.

ARTS & CULTURE

It Takes a Village

The Yellow Springs Film Festival is back with a “Mini Fest” ahead of its regular event this fall

BY BRENT STROUD

The Yellow Springs Film Festival is back with a special one-day

“Mini Fest” this April to act as a preview of sorts for the second annual festival in October.

Yellow Springs, the small bohemian village east of Dayton, is famous for its historic liberal arts college, Antioch, its eclectic mix of shops and restaurants and as being home to comedian Dave Chappelle — but the Yellow Springs Film Festival is set to become another hallmark of the already popular destination town.

This year will mark the second edition of the Yellow Springs Film Festival, launched last October to welcoming and enthusiastic audiences at three days of events across the village.

Last fall’s inaugural festival included narrative and documentary films like

the Tribeca Film Festival documentary

The Cave of Adullam and the world premiere of actor Steve Zahn’s directorial debut, Lynn’s Fire. The festival also included stand-up performances from comedy great Fred Armisen and several Q&As with filmmakers, musicians and industry insiders that included both Armisen and Zahn, as well as Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon, Academy Award winner Steven Bognar and several others. The festival also featured a gallery retrospective as tribute to Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker, activist and longtime Yellow Springs resident, Julia Reichert, who passed away in 2022 after a battle with cancer.

“The genesis of the whole project was to facilitate bringing some really interesting films, events and people to the Southern Ohio area to try to contribute

to the art scene as much as possible,” Yellow Springs Film Festival founder Eric Mahoney told CityBeat in a recent phone conversation. The festival was a major success with multiple sellout crowds and all of the variety of events well-received by attendees. “It really resonated with the village a lot and, actually regionally, it did really well. We had people from all over the country,” Mahoney recalls. He adds, “It’s something we’re very much looking to scale and build and make a mainstay year after year here moving forward.”

As part of that growth, the festival is branching out with the upcoming oneday Mini Fest on April 6 that will feature four films and special guests throughout the day at the Little Art Theatre in the heart of Yellow Springs.

The event starts at 12:30 p.m. with the

screening of Thelma, a film that recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film stars June Squibb, who Mahoney describes as “a 94-year-old powerhouse lead actress,” along with Parker Posey, Malcolm McDowell and Richard Roundtree.

The Thelma screening is followed by a 3 p.m. screening and talk with the first special guest of the day, director and author Nelson George. George’s short film, A Great Day in Hip Hop documents legendary photographer Gordon Parks’ late ‘90s photo session of 177 hip-hop heavyweights that was a continuation of Parks’ earlier tribute to the 1958 Art Kane photo, A Great Day in Harlem, featuring jazz greats taken on the same Harlem brownstone stoop decades before.

Mahoney calls George “a seminal New

Eric Mahoney (left) and Fred Armisen at the first-annual Yellow Springs Film Festival

PHOTO: MATTHEW COLLINS

York artist” and says he and George will discuss the photo session, New York’s relationship to jazz and hip-hop and upcoming work, including a sneak peek at George’s newest documentary on basketball legend David Thompson.

The day continues with a recent feature from the Venice Film Festival and this year’s SXSW Festival, Gasoline Rainbow, at 5:30 p.m., followed by a Q&A with the film’s directors, brothers Bill and Turner Ross.

Thank You Very Much, the documentary about comedy genius and actor Andy Kaufman that won Best Documentary at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, will play at 9 p.m., closing out the day. Mahoney describes Thank You Very Much as, “a great, great film on a really unique artist.”

The Mini Fest is an addition to the festival’s regular programming. “I think we were so excited about the festival last year and looking forward to this year — we just didn’t want to wait to put something else on.” He also mentions people in the community asking about the

festival, and using the event to, “keep the festival on people’s radar and to reiterate that we’re here to stay and we’ll be doing one-off events outside the festival too.”

Possibly the most exciting part is that the festival will try to make one-off events like the Mini Fest a regular thing, and, additionally, that they are looking to take events to cities throughout Ohio as a type of outreach. Mahoney mentions talks with the Wexner Center in Columbus and his ties with the Dayton area, but also mentions a closer possibility. “We’d love to get down to Cincinnati to do something,” Mahoney says. “Those kinds of things are percolating.”

Mahoney’s past and interests help guide festival programming. He grew up in Dayton and became involved in the music scene, playing in touring band Murder Your Darlings and later moved to Columbus. Mahoney calls music his first love. “That’s why I still look to program music docs and have musicians in the mix because it really still is something that’s very important to me.”

He later moved to New York City where he pursued another passion. “I also had an equal kind of love for cinema and started working for directors on television series and things like that and got into making my own docs and producing.” His credits include the moving 2019 documentary on the influential ‘90s alternative band from Dayton, Brainiac, called Brainiac: Transmissions After Zero, and the 2015 documentary on golden age folk singer and activist, Joan Baez, called Joan Baez: Rebel Icon. He’s also worked as a producer.

Mahoney has also created the podcast Kon-Tiki, where he discusses movies with people like director Jim Jarmusch, comedian Todd Barry and musician Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.

Mahoney says that the lineup for the Yellow Springs Film Festival in October has not been finalized yet.

“The lineup is not yet solidified,” Mahoney says. “Those decisions tend to be made much, much later in the year because of people’s scheduling and film distribution. A lot of the films I’m chasing right now, for instance, I don’t really know if they’re going to get picked up or when they would be streaming. It’s really important for me to bring films, for the most part, that aren’t available to watch anywhere else, so trying to do that is a little bit of a delicate dance at times.”

Though the details of the festival haven’t been finalized and announced yet, the second-annual Yellow Springs Film Festival will be held Oct. 4-6.

Tickets are available now for the individual film screenings held during the Yellow Springs Film Festival’s Mini Fest Info: ysfilmfest.com.

ARTS & CULTURE

In June, the late pop culture icon Jerry Springer will be memorialized in a larger-than-life way. ArtWorks’ plans for a mural on the Tender Mercies building in Over-the-Rhine are underway, along with an open call to artists for a mural designer.

The mural will depict a vertical image of Springer holding up a peace sign with the words “Take care of yourself, and each other,” according to an ArtWorks press release. It will also include a QR code that viewers can scan to make a donation to Tender Mercies, a cause that was “close to Springer’s heart.” Springer was a “generous” supporter of Tender Mercies for 25 years, the press release states.

Tender Mercies helps adults experiencing homelessness by providing housing and resources. The organization was established in 1985, and it creates opportunities through benefits like employment training, independent living skills and counseling.

Work on the mural will begin in June, a little over a year after Springer’s death

Jerry Springer to be Subject of New ArtWorks Mural in Over-the-Rhine

BY KATIE GRIFFITH

in April 2023. For now, ArtWorks is hosting an open call to artists until April

9. An artist to design the mural will be selected by April 15. Once a designer is selected, ArtWorks apprentices and teaching artists will begin work on the

mural at 27 West 12 St.

Cincinnati City Councilmember Jeff Cramerding and longtime friend of Springer, Jene Galvin, proposed the creation of a mural to honor Springer’s life in a meaningful way.

“We believe Jerry would not want simply a mural to pay homage to him, but instead he would want a mural to help him, even in death, to continue the work that was in his spirit, meaning he would want to try to help others through the mural, in this case, Tender Mercies. It all fits the theme of, ‘take care of yourself and each other,’“ Galvin said in the release.

Springer is remembered not only for his contributions to pop culture, but as Cincinnati’s 56th mayor and a WLWT news anchor. The Jerry Springer Show was a daytime talk show that ran for 27 seasons and hosted “ordinary people with extraordinary stories,” often stirring unforgettable drama, to which the audience would famously chant, “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!”

Support for the ArtWorks mural

comes from Springer’s friends and family like Galvin, Louis Beck of Union and Guardian Savings Banks and Marcia Spaeth of Union Savings Bank, the press release states.

ArtWorks senior director of marketing and communications Jill Dunne said that the Jerry Springer mural aligns with the organization’s aim to produce and facilitate impactful community art.

“We’re always eager to respond to community needs and requests, and we are attuned to the voice of Cincinnati and its requests,“ Dunne said in the release. “Through partnerships and collaboration, we aim to create impactful community art, and this project is no exception. Jerry’s show often featured ordinary people with extraordinary stories, making it truly remarkable. Now, we’re focused on finding the perfect designer who can embody Jerry’s philosophy in this mural.”

For more information about ArtWorks, visit artworkscincinnati.org.

The life of Jerry Springer will be honored with an ArtWorks mural. Springer died in April 2023 at age 79.

PHOTO: CREDIT

Cincinnati City Council Approves Funding for King Records Preservation Project

BY ASHLEY MOOR AND KATIE GRIFFITH

Cincinnati City Council approved funding on March 27 to benefit the preservation of historic Cincinnati record label King Records.

The King Records Legacy Foundation, the foundation created to revitalize the King Records complex and help educate others about its historical significance, will receive $205,000 from council to cover the cost of an executive director and marketing. The King Records buildings are currently owned by the city.

According to Steve Goodin, the foundation’s treasurer, Kent Butts, the son of King Records musician Otis Williams, will be the foundation’s executive director. In this role, Butts will be charged with doing a number of tasks meant to help the foundation fundraise $2 million in the next year, which will include creating a benefit concert this summer.

In an initial city council meeting, the city was poised to give $410,000 to the King Records Legacy Foundation, but councilmembers determined that more information was needed before allocating any funds. After determining the full scope of the foundation’s fundraising goals, council cut the initial funding in half to $205,000.“

This is really exciting,” councilmember Reggie Harris said during the council meeting on March 27. “This is the allocation of dollars for King Records

Help Transform a Vacant Lot in Bellevue into a Pollinator Garden at this Art-Making Event

BY KATHERINE BARRIER

ANorthern Kentucky multimedia artist is plotting a way to turn a vacant city lot in Bellevue into a pollinator meadow, and she’s inviting the community to help.

Devan Horton is a Bellevue native and a 2015 graduate of Northern Kentucky University who curates pop-up art galleries in unused spaces and has recently been serving as artwork curator for the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit and lead artist for the local mural group Immersion Alley. She says her work has always been nature-focused

— a project that’s long overdue. What we have is a funding strategy from the city. We have a plan on paper from the organization and an executive director that has a 12 month strategy to get us to phase two. This really kicks off our strategic momentum moving forward to getting this project across the finish line.”

The former record label was founded in the Evanston neighborhood of Cincinnati in 1943 by businessman Syd Nathan. The record label recruited artists in two genres: “Hillbilly,” or

Appalachian music, and “Race,” which then referred to music made by Black artists. Those genres are considered to be early precursors to rock and roll. At a time when most businesses throughout the country were segregated, King Records is credited as being one of the first Cincinnati businesses to operate an integrated workplace. During its heyday, King Records attracted talent such as James Brown and Bootsy Collins.

The King Records Legacy Foundation launched in 2021 as a collaboration between City of Cincinnati officials, the

and it has recently become more guided by sustainability, thanks to her series “Penchant,” a collection of trashed landscape paintings that were inspired by her frustration of finding and collecting trash in nature.

Horton says the series changed her artistic practice as a whole, and she has since been experimenting with botanical

neighborhood of Evanston and former King Records recording artists.

The King Records site in Evanston was designated as a local landmark in 2015 and it earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022. On Brewster Avenue, visible from both the northbound and southbound corridors of I-71, the King Records complex of five buildings holds a legacy that is both impressive and influential. The shell of the King Records complex has been vacant for years.

In a previous story, King Records Legacy Foundation secretary Elliott Ruther told CityBeat that the King Records site will also include a learning center with a repository of artifacts; a museum with a gallery and rotating exhibition space; facilitation of new music and art; music education; a concert and performance space; and Civil Rights-Era education components. The learning center also will provide support for King Records artists and former employees and will connect with community and global partners in furthering the label’s legacy.

Council will be following up with the King Records Legacy Foundation in a year to monitor the progress on their fundraising goals. Though the foundation hopes to raise at least $2 million in the next year, they ultimately want to raise between $15-20 million for the entire renovation project.

dyes, paper making and creating her own non-toxic paints and inks. Now, she wants to use art as a way to involve the community in her upcoming pollinator garden project, called “Perennial.”

The plot, located at the ends of Grandview and Washington avenues in Bellevue, was a community garden decades ago. Horton says when she first

saw the plot, nothing but ragweed was growing there and it was fenced in. But now, work has been done to clean up, mow and till it to get it ready for spring planting.

As part of “Perennial,” on Saturday, May 18 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., participants will create art using natural dyes Devan created and seed paper full of native pollinator plant seeds before planting them in the lot. There will also be art and native plants for sale, and Roebling Books & Coffee will set up a mini library.

“The community will create a living, breathing work of art that restores an unused plot of land, offering both a resting haven for pollinators and beauty to the neighborhood,” Horton said in a press release.

A grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women’s Art as Activism helped fund the project.

To learn more, you can follow Devan Horton on Instagram at @hortondevan and her website, devanhorton.com.

A building on the King Records complex in Evanston

PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

Devan Horton

FOOD & DRINK

A Source of Light

Coffee roasters La Terza open brick-and-mortar shop Luminary by La Terza in College Hill

BY KELSEY GRAHAM

Well-known local coffee roasters La Terza have expanded their footprint and opened a brick-and-mortar business called Luminary by La Terza in the College Hill neighborhood. Since 2001, La Terza has roasted high-quality, specialty coffee for wholesale and other coffee shops, but in June of 2023, they started a new adventure at 6128 Hamilton Ave.

The location may be familiar to some, as it was previously home to the community staple College Hill Coffee Company for over 40 years. In the spring of 2023, the owner of College Hill Coffee Company decided to retire but wanted to pass the space along to another business that wanted to run it as a coffee shop, so she reached out to the owners of La Terza to see if they would be interested.

While opening a coffee shop had always been a dream, they weren’t necessarily looking for an opportunity at that moment. “We kind of figured

that dream of owning a coffee shop was further down the road,” said Kirsten Zook, one of the owners of Luminary by La Terza. But this offer was too good to pass up. “It felt serendipitous,” said Zook. “We just felt like it was a oncein-a-lifetime chance. It was the right opportunity at the right time.”

Zook, her husband Robert Gatesi, and brothers David and Michael Gaines took ownership of the location in March 2023 and spent the next three months renovating the space to bring their vision to life. During the pandemic, the owner of College Hill Coffee Company pivoted and turned the sit-down coffee shop into a gift shop, so the team spent the next few months turning it into a place of their own. For the space’s design and aesthetic, the shop’s name inspired them with its double meaning: being a light source and a historical luminary as someone who inspires. “We played off it being a light, bright, spacious and open building,” said Zook.

The shop’s walls are a neutral creamy white, and the ceiling is a serene sky blue. There are tables scattered throughout the shop that can seat around 50 people, couches and a window bar that overlooks the street. To further the feeling of warmth and light, the shop has a lighting system that changes the colors of the light fixtures depending on the time of day. While they gave the space a facelift, they kept its historic charm with the original woodwork and a copper bar top.

for the neighborhood. Outside of being an owner, Zook works in public health and enjoys being able to bring both worlds together. “It’s been really kind of a dream come true to me to be able to merge my public health work with the local community,” she said.

And let’s not forget about the coffee. The mainstay menu of drinks are brewed using La Terza’s roasted coffee beans, and include classic coffee shop options like cappuccinos, mochas, drip and pour-over coffees and house cold and nitro cold brews. In addition to the permanent menu, there’s also a rotating selection of seasonal beverages that changes every two to three months that Zook says are customer favorites. The most recent spring seasonal menu features a Peep latte flavored with a roasted marshmallow syrup, and a floral lavender chai that’s made with lavender syrup. For non-coffee drinkers, the menu offers a selection of teas and hot chocolate. There are also bagged varieties of La Terza’s specialty roasted coffee bean blends that are available for purchase.

The owner’s children inspired another popular area in the shop: a family-friendly space filled with games, toys, art supplies and a lending library. “There are six children between all the people who own the shop,” said Zook. “We quickly learned while we were renovating that we needed somewhere for them to play while we were here.” After visiting the location recently, a local woodworker reached out and made spinning wood top toys and dropped them off at the coffee shop for kids to play with.

While many changes have been made to the space, one important aspect of the former College Hill Coffee Company remains the same: a focus on community and warmth. “Where I feel like we’ve tried to integrate things is with the spirit of the previous shop,” said Zook. “It’s always been a very warm and inclusive place, and letting the community guide what happens.”

Along with the main seating area, there is a semi-private table in the back open to the space, but that can be closed off with floating shelves to provide privacy. Since its opening, many groups in the community, including book clubs, knitting groups and nonprofits, have used the coffee shop as a meeting space after regular business hours. “The community has come to us for a lot of things,” said Zook. The location has also hosted live music, open mic nights, spoken word poetry events and listening sessions

Since the space had a full kitchen, the owners wanted to embrace that and offer food along with drinks. Zook describes the menu as an “ever-evolving process,” offering a selection of pastries and baked goods (all products are made in-house except the gluten-free options, which are outsourced to a gluten-free certified bakery) and a light breakfast and lunch menu that includes soups, salads and sandwiches. And while they are experimenting with different food menu options, the foundation of the business will always be coffee. “The heart of what we do is coffee, and we want to make sure that it’s first and foremost a coffee shop,” said Zook.

Since opening in June, Zook has felt the neighborhood’s welcoming and positive response. With all the excitement and enthusiasm for the coffee shop, she and the rest of the owners are making it a point to nail down running a brick-and-mortar location before planning too many events. “That’s probably been one of our biggest challenges: just taking this one step at a time and not trying to do everything all at the same time,” she said. “Everyone’s really excited, which is a beautiful thing, but I don’t want to do it all poorly.”

For now, she’s enjoying this new venture for the coffee roasters and creating a safe and welcoming space for the community and guests. “I really created this space to be somewhere if you want to come at 8 in the morning, sit down with your laptop, and stay until we close, you’re welcome to stay all day,” said Zook.

Luminary by La Terza, 6128 Hamilton Ave., College Hill. More info: luminarybylaterza.com.

Luminary by La Terza took over the space previously occupied by College Hill Coffee Company

PHOTO: AIDAN MAHONEY

The Top 12 Restaurants Cincinnati Chef Jose Salazar

Recommends

BY CITYBEAT STAFF

At CityBeat, we love giving restaurant recommendations, but we thought it was time to ask Cincinnati’s culinary pros what they think. We reached out to Chef Jose Salazar, the proprietor of beloved Cincinnati restaurants like Mita’s and Goose & Elder, as well as the upcoming Moroccan-inspired wine bar Safi, to see where in the city he likes to eat and what dishes he gravitates toward.

Salazar gave us a list of 12 Greater Cincinnati restaurants, including places with authentic Colombian fare; an upscale, but not fussy, Southern eatery; and a pizzeria that’s doing pizza right (high praise from a born-and-raised New Yorker like Salazar).

Keep scrolling to see which restaurants, in no particular order, he recommends.

Nolia

1405 Clay St., Over-the-Rhine

Bringing New Orleans-style flair and fare to Over-the-Rhine, Nolia offers diners an upscale, yet approachable, experience, which is exactly what Salazar loves about it, adding it’s “yummy A.F.” He also appreciates the changing menu. “The menu is a tour of what proper Southern food can and should be.”

Bouquet

519 Main St., Covington

At this Covington eatery, elegant small plates, entrées and thoughtful wine pairings set the stage for an intimate dining experience. Working closely with local sources, Bouquet’s upscale farm-to-table approach means a fresh, frequently rotating menu packed with seasonal ingredients, which is exactly what Salazar loves about it. He says it’s “sometimes forgotten because that’s what happens when you do something so consistently good for so long. May just be time to revisit them.”

Saint Francis Apizza

3392 Erie Ave., Hyde Park

Salazar says, as a New Yorker, he’s got strong opinions about pizza, and Alex Plattner at Saint Francis Apizza and his team get it right and are always working to improve. The popular pizzeria offers a variety of house pies, like the Cincy Supreme and the Fancy White, or you can build your own. And if you want to pack your freezer with Saint Francis’ frozen pies to toss in the oven whenever you get the craving, Salazar swears they taste exactly the same as fresh from the pizzeria.

Mazunte

5207 Madison Road, Madisonville; 611 Main St., Downtown Mazunte has been long-hailed as a “hidden gem,” offering a mix of casual order-at-the-counter dining with authentic, high-quality Mexican cuisine. Salazar says the tacos are good, but don’t sleep on the memalitas (thin masa cakes that have been grilled and can be topped with chicken, chorizo, pork or vegetables) or the pozole (a traditional Mexican soup). It’s also cheap with an authentic Mexico feel, all the way down to the cinder blocks and milk crates for furniture, he adds.

The Arepa Place (Wyoming)

1517 Springfield Pike, Wyoming

Arepa Place’s Wyoming location may not be on a lot of people’s radar, says Salazar. Owner Isis Arrieta-Dennis brought the Findlay Market favorite’s menu of fast-casual South American eats to the neighborhood in 2022. The restaurant serves up authentic Colombian eats inspired by her home country, with stuffed arepas — a pocket-like food made from a corn dough and filling — being the main star of the menu. “Colombian food is not very well known in our city,” says Salazar. “If you want to

taste the real thing (and you should), go see them.”

Longfellow

1233 Clay St., Over-the-Rhine

Longfellow is a stylish, lowkey cocktail bar that has a menu of beers, wines, expertly crafted cocktails and Old-Worldinspired food. Salazar says the drinks are fabulous and the small plates crave-able. “Mike Stankovich and crew will make you feel like an old friend even if it’s your first time,” he told CityBeat.

Oriental Wok

317 Buttermilk Pike, Lakeside Park; 2444 Madison Road, Hyde Park

Transcending the typical Chinese American menu since 1977, Oriental Wok and the Wong family offer upscale, innovative, fresh and delicious chef-prepared cuisine that’s never boring. Salazar likes that it’s been family-run for three generations and always has some cool off-menu items (be sure to ask). He says Oriental Wok also has the best service.

Kiki

5932 Hamilton Ave., College Hill

Kiki College Hill features a menu of notyour-typical Japanese cuisine crafted by chefs Hideki and Yuko Harada and was

Jose Salazar says that Nolia is “yummy A.F.”

PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

recently featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Salazar says the restaurant is a real neighborhood spot that’s worth the trip and calls the kakiage and ramen “killer,” adding, “I heard they are doing whole fish. I can’t wait to go try it.”

The Precinct

311 Delta Ave., Columbia Tusculum

The Precinct, named after the Romanesque-style former police precinct it’s housed in, is a premier steakhouse from

the Jeff Ruby Culinary Group. And, sure, you know all about The Precinct’s steaks, but Salazar says when he goes there, he wants the burger. “My favorite burger and fries in the city in one of the most wonderful bar rooms anywhere,” he told CityBeat

Pickled Pig

645 E. McMillan St., Walnut Hills

The Pickled Pig is known for its madefrom-scratch sandwiches, soups and

salads, as well as small-batch fermented and pickled goods. Salazar says they have the most amazing ferments and tasty sammies, plus owners Gary Leybman and Libby Power are “the nicest people this side of the Mississippi.”

Onolicious

1005 Walnut St., Downtown Salazar calls Onolicious’ Hawaiian barbecue “damn tasty” and says there’s nothing else like it in

Cincinnati. And rumor has it brunch is “knock-your-socks-off good.” The menu features tropical fare made with locally sourced ingredients, and patrons can expect a variety of classic Hawaiian dishes, as well as other island-style offerings. “Makes me want to fly to Hawaii right this moment just thinking about the food,” Salazar says.

Colette

1400 Race St., Over-the-Rhine

A new restaurant from chef Danny Combs, Colette is a French-ish restaurant that opened just steps away from Washington Park last November. The restaurant embodies Old World style, with a warm and inviting atmosphere that doesn’t lose that neighborhood feel. Salazar says the place has “some of the most talented pros in the city under one roof. Pretty much everything is going to be well executed.” On that well-executed menu, you’ll find French and French-inspired cuisine like Raviole du Dauphiné (served with Comté cheese, ricotta and brown butter) and Steak Frites (an 8-ounce Creekstone New York strip steak with peppercorn sauce and served with fries). To drink, guests can choose from an extensive list of sparkling, white and red wines, craft cocktails and beer. And for dessert, don’t miss out on the Mille-Feuille (caramelized puff pastry with crème diplomate).

Salazar calls Kiki’s kakiage and ramen “killer” PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

Saint Francis Apizza is one of Salazar’s favorite pizza places in Greater Cincinnati

PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

Salazar suggests patrons try Mazunte’s memalitas and pozole

PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

MUSIC

The Fearlessness of Todd Rundgren

The ‘Wizard, True Star’ on his legendary career, following his own path, the future, AI and more

BY BRENT STROUD

Few people have had a career like Todd Rundgren’s and even fewer have been as fiercely independent while navigating it.

Rundgren is equal parts legendary and rebellious musician/artist, career-defining producer and industry visionary.

Rundgren spoke with CityBeat ahead of the start of his “Me/We 2024 Tour” that includes a stop at the Andrew J Brady Music Center on April 24.

Rundgren’s career began with Nazz, the late ‘60s psych-pop band he formed in his native Philadelphia, but he quickly tired of the “whirlwind of showbiz.”

“The Nazz was on the cover of 16 Magazine before our first album ever

came out, so it was all hype versus what we wanted,” Rundgren tells CityBeat “That became, to me, a signature aspect of the failing of the old model of the music business. I just wanted to make records.”

After a short hiatus, he was hired by music business power player and former Bob Dylan manager, Albert Grossman, to work on his Bearsville label to update the sound of the label’s folk acts.

Still writing songs, Rundgren recorded what became his first solo record, Runt, that featured the 1970 hit “We Gotta Get You a Woman.”

Rundgren touches on an early influence and, more importantly, something that would inform a major part of his own legacy.

Though Rundgren recalls, the first record he bought “with any purpose” was The Beatles’ Second Album with the aim of learning all of George Harrison’s solos, he tells CityBeat of another side of the band’s influence. “On The Beatles’ first American release…it lists all the instruments they played on the record, even down to maracas,” he says with a laugh. “But, it was like, ‘Wow, they played Arabian drum.’ It was all the things they played on the entire record — organ, piano. I thought, ‘This is what a musician is supposed to do,’ not just play one instrument but because you’re a musician you can adapt to other instruments.

“Even on the very first Nazz record, when we had the opportunity to get in

the studio, the first thing we did was go to studio instrument rentals and I had a yellow legal pad and I would just point at things, ‘Send the kettle drums Tuesday, send the tubular bells on Saturday,’” he recalls, laughing. “That continued when I started doing my solo records and by the time I got to my second record (Runt. The Ballad of Todd Rundgren), I wasn’t playing the bass and drums, but I was doing pretty much all the other instruments with few exceptions.”

By 1972, Rundgren had made the now classic and influential Something/ Anything?, ranked among all three iterations of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums,” this time playing nearly every instrument on the album. The record

Todd Rundgren

PHOTO: REX RUNDGREN

produced the hits “I Saw the Light” and “Hello, It’s Me,” officially making Rundgren a solo star.

His do-it-yourself approach has since become a gold standard for generations of musicians.

“After the success of that, I did something that was considered career suicide, which was to ignore everything that had made Something/Anything? successful and make a record that nobody would make. At that point I realized, ‘Well, I still have my production career and regardless of how successful I am as a solo artist, I don’t see the point in repeating what other people are doing,’” Rundgren tells CityBeat of his decision-making process behind the making of the experimental and now cult favorite, A Wizard, a True Star (1973). “So, that has kind of characterized my musical decisions ever since.”

A bold-sounding Rundgren predicted his future success during an August 1973 interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I produce records because I have to eat and my own albums aren’t commercial enough to pay anything. I think they will gain a commercial value in the very near future, as soon as people start to realize how bored they are with all this Muzak everyone is producing,” Rundgren told the Cincinnati Enquirer at the time.

Rundgren laughed after being reminded of the quote. “There’s no point in half-committing to something; you need to be all in if you expect to get the most out of it.”

The ever-changing musician took yet another turn in 1973, introducing his prog-rock project, Utopia, that would last off and on into the next decade between his various production and solo work.

Hermit of Mink Hollow (1978) was another career high that produced the hit “Can We Still Be Friends,” with Rundgren again solely responsible for nearly every aspect of recording, and then achieved yet another career high with the 1982 hit, “Bang the Drum All Day.”

Rundgren has had a hit-filled and influential run as an artist working in several genres, including on 2004’s critically acclaimed electro-pop social critique on the bending of truth, Liars, and on collaborative albums like Space Force (2022).

Rundgren’s production credits should be reason enough to solidify his place in history.

By the age of 22 he was the house engineer at Bearsville and working with The Band on 1970’s Stage Fright. “Right as you’re beginning your career, they put you together with what is arguably the hottest band in the whole world at the time,” Rundgren says. In 1971, he took over production for

George Harrison on Badfinger’s now classic album, Straight Up, when Harrison refocused his attention to work on The Concert for Bangladesh. Rundgren recalls sessions for the self-titled landmark album by protopunk luminaries, The New York Dolls. “It was a circus making that record. It was constantly groupies and journalists and people in the studio all the time. It was not [a typical] band- producer relationship; I was more ringmaster than anything, just trying to get all of the guys in the studio at the same time, sober enough to get a couple of takes.”

By the time he was producing Grand Funk Railroad’s We’re An American Band (1973) and Shinin’ On (1974), Rundgren was one of the most successful and highest-paid producers in the world.

He went on to produce and often play on records by Hall & Oates, Patti Smith, Cheap Trick, The Psychedelic Furs, XTC and Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, to name a few.

Throughout his multifaceted career, Rundgren has stayed uncommonly ahead of the curve. He founded Utopia Video Studios in 1978, and his video for “Time Heals” off his 1981 concept album, Healing, was one of the first 10 videos played on MTV. His interactive 1993 release, No World Order, became the first interactive album, allowing listeners to alter playback of a song from different versions of production and more. In the late ‘90s, he was involved in an early online music distribution service called PatroNet where fans subscribed to artists’ music, cutting out record labels. Rundgren says the idea is currently being revived as GlobalNation.

When asked about his seeming expertise in the cutting edge, Rundgren says, “Well, it isn’t necessarily about loving the technology, it’s about not fearing it. A lot of people, if it’s something new, they fear it.” Rundgren adds, “But, technology isn’t everything. We are reaching the event horizon with AI and everything here, and what’s on the other side of that horizon, live music. There’s no way to synthesize that.”

Rundgren will be performing with longtime collaborators Kasim Sulton and Prairie Prince among the fiveperson backing band for his “Me/We 2024 Tour.” He tells CityBeat the show will feature a lot of “deep cuts” and “party songs.”

“We’re hoping to create a very theatrical kind of atmosphere where we can get really intimate in some moments and really big in other moments.”

Todd Rundgren and his band play the Andrew J Brady Music Center on April 24 at 8 p.m. Info: bradymusiccenter.com.

JOHN MORELAND

April 11 • Ludlow Garage

Straddling the Southwest heartland, Oklahoma has been the home of many roots music artists, from Woody Guthrie to Bob Wills to Leon Russell. Keeping in this folk/country tradition, singersongwriter John Moreland offers his own 21st century update of dust bowl balladry.

Though born in Texas, Moreland and family resettled in Tulsa, OK, which he still considers home. Moreland began playing guitar in local punk bands, but soon evolved into a singular, acoustic artist with nine indie records released so far.

With its acoustic dynamics and terse lyricism, High on Tulsa Heat from 2015 is the essential record that provided Moreland a higher, alt-country profile. On last year’s tour, he celebrated the 10th anniversary release of In The Throes, one of his most stripped down, self-produced efforts. Like the majority of Moreland’s music, it’s a spare, acoustic revelation steeped in sorrow, grit, and abandoned love. A few songs, like “Spells” and “Heaven” were even used as moody soundtrack textures on the hit show Sons of Anarchy

Moreland’s wounded baritone and fingerpicking prowess imbue all his songs with gravitas, and a deep, emotional intimacy develops between singer and listener. Birds in the Ceiling, his most recent record from 2022, adds more atmospheric layers with muted keyboards and synths, but his acoustic guitar still dominates.

In a 2022 interview with The Boot, Moreland explains the genesis of his writing: “When I started writing songs, I was transitioning into adulthood and starting to try to make sense of where I come from and who I am and who am I gonna be. . . It’s been consistently — I wouldn’t call it a struggle, but it is definitely the journey that I am still on.”

John Moreland plays the Ludlow Garage on April 11 at 7:30 p.m. Info: ludlowgaragecincinnati.com. (Greg Gaston)

SUZANNE VEGA

April 15 • Memorial Hall

Suzanne Vega is a musical survivor. The New York City native has been in the spotlight for nearly four decades, a winding career that crested commercially with 1987’s Solitude Standing (which included radio staples “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner) and is capped by

the 2020 release of An Evening of New York Songs and Stories, a live album featuring tunes from across her lengthy catalog.

Vega studied modern dance in high school and English literature in college, artistic branches that couldn’t help but inform her musical approach — penetrating, folk-fortified songs that eventually employed elements of electronic music and a dollop of pop lushness. And while her studio output has slowed in recent years (the most recent effort being 2016’s Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers), Vega tours on a regular basis, delivering her literate material with passion and dexterity. Recent set lists include songs

from across her various artistic eras, from “Queen and the Soldier,” which appeared on her 1985 self-titled debut, to “99.9 F,” the sleek electro effort that remains a fascinating U-turn in a discography that continues to resonate.

“I like doing ‘Queen and the Soldier,’” Vega said in a 2023 interview with the QR when asked about performing live these days. “It’s remained a fan favorite. It doesn’t matter how long a gig is, how long we’ve been on, it’s always fun to do.”

But there’s inevitably one moment that stands out each night — a song with an interesting creative trajectory given its move from a 1981 pianobased demo to a 1990 beat-driven

remix version known for employing various groundbreaking digital compression schemes.

“Of course, we always come to ‘Tom’s Diner’ at the end, and it’s a really joyful moment,” she said in the same QR interview. “It’s only become more and more glorious over the years. Now we have overlays of the audience’s memories. All these years since the record launched, they get up because they have their own memories, whilst younger folks have heard it sampled through remixes. It’s just such a beautiful overlay of memory and feeling through time.”

Suzanne Vega plays Memorial Hall on April 15 at 8 p.m. Info: memorialhallotr.com. (Jason Gargano)

John Moreland

PHOTO: ROBERTA, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

THE BYGONES

April 17 • Woodward Theater

Even by 21st-century standards, The Bygones story is kind of bonkers. The duo Joshua Lee Turner and Allison Young met online through Instagram in 2017, “kindred old souls recording songs on a (relatively) new platform,” as they recount it. They first met in person more than a year after their initial online interactions, deciding, seemingly impromptu, to perform a version of Willie Nelson’s “Crazy,” posting it on YouTube in November 2018. Five

years later, the video is approaching 5 million views and has prompted more than 6,500 comments, most of them rapturous. It’s easy to see why — Young’s voice is clear and emotive, a classic Patsy Cline-inflected approach matched by Turner’s deft acoustic-guitar playing and complementary vocals. The duo’s no-frills nature is both quaint and oddly affecting, the kind of thing that rarely goes viral these days — which makes their rise even more curious.

After a brief U.K. touring run in 2022, the duo embarked on their first U.S.

shows in 2023 despite not yet recording a full-length effort. That changed this month with the release of a selftitled album of original tunes aided by a Kickstarter fund drive, an entirely independent endeavor that, with the help of some Nashville studio aces, sounds like an Americanized version of early 1990s acts The Sundays and The Cranberries.

Multiple current tour dates at midsized venues like The Woodward are already sold out, a testament to The Bygones’ timeless sound and further evidence that there is an audience for well-crafted and deftly delivered songs.

The Bygones play the Woodward Theater on April 17 at 7:30 p.m. Info: woodwardtheater.com. (JG)

ALVVAYS

April 19 • Bogart’s

Touring behind their highly-lauded third album, Blue Rev, the Torontobased indie rock band Alvvays is bringing their emotionally resonant dream pop to Cincinnati.

Alvvays have been on a steady upward trajectory since first gaining attention for their hit song “Archie, Marry Me” in 2013. It’s a song that manages to sound both pleading and anthemic, as if the narrator is begging the titular Archie to join hands in matrimony, but if not, then to hell with it; she’ll be just fine on her own.

“Archie” wasn’t simply a one-off, either. Alvvays’ songs have an instant

familiarity to them; they feel like classics on the first listen. Blue Rev’s “After the Earthquake” is a perfect example. The song seems to take a page from Johnny Marr’s playbook as a reverb-drenched arpeggiated guitar riff is introduced, a second shimmering delayed guitar chimes in, and drums announce themselves like a starting pistol. The song races breathlessly forward and so do singer Molly Rankin’s vocals as she recounts the slow demise of a relationship, “looking back to those vibrant days” when she could once throw “caution to the breeze.”

In a similar vein, “Easy On Your Own?” challenges the subject of the song to “say it’s over” if they “don’t like it,” asking “Does it get easy on your own?” The question sounds like a taunt and an earnest appeal at the same time. It’s easy to detect Alvvays’ influences — The Smiths, the sweetly sardonic lyricism of Stephin Merritt, Teenage Fanclub, Beach House — but they wear them lightly, instead opting to meld such disparate parts into a mesmerizing whole.

Alvvays are keeping busy touring behind Blue Rev and will embark on a North American tour in early April, with Ohio as their first stop. With spring on the way, there are plenty of vibrant days ahead of us. The music of Alvvays provides a fitting soundtrack to each one of them.

Alvvays play Bogart’s on April 19 at 8 p.m. Info: bogarts.com. (Derek Kalback)

Alvvays

PHOTO: PAUL HUDSON, FLICKR

Suzanne Vega

PHOTO: OLAF TAUSCH

The Bygones PHOTO: BRETT WARREN

CROSSWORD

Across

1.  Cutting room?

5.  Jack-o’-lantern mo.

8.  Gets up

13.  Mount Olympus queen

ODDFELLOWS

BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY

WWW.BRENDANEMMETTQUIGLEY.COM

37.  The Storting’s nat.

38.  Toy’s sound

41.  2002 Adam Sandler movie

43 & 44. Tied up after four games

45.  Working stiff

14.  Org. that does a lot of lab work

15.  Restaurant place

16.  A news anchor might wear one

18.  “Same here”

19.  Buzzing activity

20.  Audit manager, likely: Abbr.

21.  Harvest

22.  R&B group with the 1986 Top Ten hit “Tender Love”

25.  Bathtub cleaner

28.  Their motto is “Defending Our Nation. Securing the Future”: Abbr.

29.  “The Past is Another Land” musical

31.  Tackle item

32.  Minor cold

35.  “The Chi” creator Waithe

46.  The English Beat’s genre

48.  Ills

50.  Candy in the Wonder Woman universe

52.  “Austin City Limits” network

55.  Tidy up

57.  Fried fish in a bun lunch

61.  Suckling spot

62.  Time slot placeholder letters

63.  Born this way?

64.  “This way!”

66.  “Whew, that smells AWFUL!”

68.  Seafood and rice dish

69.  “Parks & ___”

70.  Accusatory phrase

71.  Bad guys in bedtime stories

72.  Bearded animal

73.  Bee lookalike

Down

1.  Bundle of grain

2.  Directly confrontational

3.  Three are there in this cule

4.  Fist bump

5.  Late lunch time

6.  Noisy insect

7.  With 26-Down, 1994 Brandon Lee movie

8.  Blue supergiant in Orion

9.  Wailing Wall nation

10.  Extended family member by remarriage

11.  Preceding, in poetry

12.  One to grow on?

15.  Groups that play well with drunks?

17.  Swelling reducer

23.  Ride from the airport

24.  Sound in “muscle” or “scissors”

26.  See 7-Down

27.  Life saver

30.  Bloodhound’s tail?

33.  One who works from home?

34.  Matcha, e.g.

36.  Question

38.  Display ennui

39.  Additive in some cosmetics

40.  Cheap sofa covering

42.  Stipple unit

47.  Car-financing fig.

49.  British MI6 agent Christopher who linked Donald Trump with the Kremlin

51.  Tennis legend Gibson

53.  Beautiful, in Barcelona

54.  Comes down hard?

56.  Titled Englishmen

58.  One way to be taken

59.  Pinning spot

60.  Was a prelude (to)

64.  CNBC news item

65.  Badger repeatedly

66.  Twisted

67.  Mountain ___

LAST PUZZLE’S ANSWERS: